


Questions to Ignore

by PuzzlingApproach



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dark, Depression, M/M, One Sided Love, Self Harm, Small Mention of Larry Stylinson, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuzzlingApproach/pseuds/PuzzlingApproach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They always ask those questions, the ones that are too hard for him to answer. The ones that produce that weight in his chest until suddenly, it feels as though he can't breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions to Ignore

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own One Direction as they are real people and therefor own themselves. This is a work of FICTION meaning that it never happened and is a work of my imagination. 
> 
> My tumblr: [wallfuckedlou](http://wallfuckedlou.tumblr.com/) or [ptxmitchie](http://ptxmitchie.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Enjoy.

They keep asking him that question.

The question he hates beyond reason and the one that no one ever shuts up about. The one that makes his heart beat a little too fast and causes a heaviness to form in his chest, like dead weight that is trying its best to swallow him whole. He tries to ignore it, honest, he does. He doesn’t want to let it consume him. But with that weight in his chest, almost hot as it continues to grow and expand in to his throat, it’s impossible to ignore.

They don’t understand.

Louis knows this, but he doesn’t forgive them for it.

They keep asking him, wondering and pestering. He doesn’t have an answer for them, not one they’d be willing to accept.

They don’t give him enough credit, to be honest. He is a better actor than any of them are willing to believe. Sure they see the cracks in his façade every once in a while, the cracks that spur the questions and the staring and he _just can’t take it_.

So he tries to ignore it. He tries so hard.

It doesn’t work.

He can feel it. The blade in his hand, the one that he always kept hidden away in the bathroom of whatever hotel they were visiting, it was itching. His whole body was practically vibrating for the relief it could bring.

But no one could know about that.

Briefly Louis wonders if perhaps that was why they ask those questions, trying to see if they can pry in to those cracks that show through and find out what’s going on with him. He’s better than that though, they won’t find out.

But the questions, they’re hard to answer. He feels trapped, guilty. He’s letting them all down and he knows it. He just doesn’t know what to do to stop it.

_What’s going on with you, Lou?_

Management never asked that question, they already knew the answer. They had for months; they were the reason for his distress, his depression. It was a question he couldn’t answer. They had made it startlingly clear that if he were to tell his secret he would be gone. Even if somehow the fans could move on, be happy for him, they had made it quite obvious that he would no longer have a place in the band. The idea made him feel nauseous.

 _What happened to our Louis? All laughs, jokes, and smiles_ — _where has he gone?_

That happy Louis, he was lost somewhere in the chaos. Somewhere so dark and hopeless it was almost a wonder if it would even be a good idea to try and drag him out. He didn’t have control over it, he couldn’t help it. All he could do was burry it so deep inside himself it was as if the whole thing never existed. Burry the thoughts, the feelings, everything— but that came at a price. No longer did he have the ability to only burry what could be dangerous to himself, to his band, but everything else as well. Everything positive got sucked inside as though his heart were forming a black hole. Light goes in but nothing comes out, a vacuum of emotions and anything optimistic.

It was suffocating.

He had no answers he was allowed to share. He was unwilling to allow One Direction to fall apart over him.

He had expressed the idea of leaving to his mates many times, when the questions became too much, when the weight in his chest became too much. When he felt like he was hyperventilating but was still somehow breathing at a normal rate, when he felt like sobbing but no noises left his lips, when he felt like pulling his hair out but his arms lay motionless at his sides. Helpless, that was when he voiced the idea.

They noticed how his once expressive eyes were dull. They noticed how his once constant smiles were forced. They noticed how his joking demeanor was utterly nonexistent.

They just didn’t know what to do.

A moan left Louis’ lips as he allowed the blade to glide lightly along the top of his thigh. He was sitting nude on the toilet lid in his hotel room, forcing the idea of Harry being outside of his small sanctuary, sleeping peacefully in his bed, out of his mind. He glanced down, smiling softly as he again ran the blade across the skin, knowing what was soon to follow the cold of the metal brushing lightly against his flesh.

 He pressed the blade in deep and dragged it across his leg, his head tipping back and his jaw locked to keep any noises from escaping. His eyes were trained on the slice in his skin. For only a moment, nothing seemed to happen. All there was to be noticed was _pain_ — beautiful, delicious pain that seemed to at once knock the wind from Louis’ lungs and allow him to breathe easier. Finally, the blood began to flow. The line of the cut filled in red before overflowing down his thigh. It wasn’t quite gushing but the abundant trails of life that were making their way down his flesh seemed to articulate his emotional release.  

 _What’s going on with you, Lou? What happened to our Louis? All laughs, jokes, and smiles_ — _where has he gone?_

In the privacy of his pain, in the privacy of his mental liberation, he could answer those questions if only to himself.

What’s going on with him? The answer was simple. He was keeping a secret, a secret that was being held over his head as blackmail since the moment he’d told management.

What had happened to him? He’d been planning on telling everyone, the fans, the press, but they’d made it quite clear that wasn’t going to happen.

Where had he gone? That didn’t quite matter anymore, did it? All that counted was that he was _gone_. Destroyed from the months of keeping to himself, feeling management’s eyes on him if he was ever sitting too close to Harry or even any of the other boys.

Where had he gone? He had withdrawn in to himself out of pure necessity. In the privacy of his mind, he could be himself. He didn’t have to pretend for cameras or anything of the like.

Where had he gone? He had gone to find his blade, his release, to take away his stress if only for a little while.

Staring down at his damaged leg, his ruined skin, a smile tugged at the corners of his lips for the first time since his last little session of self freeing.

It was a grim sight, the red trails of blood down his tanned skin. As they were pulled down by gravity, they were caught on previous scars and scabs that had not quite had the time to heal properly. That caused the trail to zigzag in to a pattern, one that Louis found himself getting lost in as he stared down at his own blood. That was the best part, truly— the watching. Watching as the blade slowly slices through the soft tissue of your flesh, watching as ever so slowly your liquid life comes to the surface, at first beading until suddenly there is too much and it overflows.

Almost like a painting, almost like art.

Slowly, Louis pulled himself to his feet. He knew what he should do. He should grab a towel, clean himself up and perhaps put on some gauze to try and stunt the flow, but he knew he wouldn’t.

Instead, he grabbed his boxer briefs and pulled them up and over his thighs. He moaned quietly, biting his lip as the feel of the fabric rubbing against the raw wound and the sight of the red liquid beading up and bleeding through the light grey material. If the moan was of pleasure or pain it was impossible to tell.

He couldn’t simply wash away what he’d done. That would be erasing his work, he needed to see— to _remember._

Even as he hid his blade and silently made his way out of the bathroom, passing a sleeping Harry Styles while doing anything possible to ignore that fact, and in to his own bed he knew that he’d need to remember tomorrow.

Because tomorrow it would start all over again— the questions, the stares, the desperate attempts to ignore it all.

He was stuck forever in his routine of pain and silence.

He couldn’t let his secret out.

He couldn’t let anyone know.

It would ruin everything.

His life.

His friends’ lives.

The band.

Harry.

But the hardest thing to face, what he often tried to ignore, was the fact he wasn't cutting because he lied, because he's gay, because he isn't allowed to be.

That'd be easier to deal with, easier to solve, than just the constant and gut wrenching feeling of _sadness_ that he could never seem to shake. When he was lucky, when he was alone and it was just him and his blades, at least he could be a little distracted. There were no fake smiles, no fake sexuality, no fake relationships. Just him, his wounded skin, his sadness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this way okay. I wrote it at 4 in the morning. It was spur of the moment and I kind of used it to vent I guess. Leave a comment or Kudos if you liked it, I would love to know what you think :)
> 
> I don't usually write dark things like this so any feedback is much appreciated :)


End file.
